Young Blood
by Ten-Faced
Summary: "Let me in," she whispers after knocking. - Oliver/Mayu, for Kaleidoscopic Dragon.


There is a knock on his window. Oliver turns from his desk and the book that he has been staring at for the past half an hour without ever reading past the first page to see hair like spun sunlight and eyes like mischievous stars.

"Let me in," she whispers.

He shakes his head, and she disappears; but her laughter stays behind, keeping him awake for a very long time.

* * *

><p>Vampires have powers. Strengths, speed and beauty of unworldly levels, for one. Immortality – to a certain extent – for another.<p>

But they also have weaknesses, for they are abominations of nature. They cannot live without blood. They cannot touch holiness, or blessed artefacts. They cannot tell a lie. They cannot enter a household unless invited, and they cannot be in direct sunlight without burning to a second, permanent death.

Every child should be taught this as soon as possible.

* * *

><p>When Oliver was three years old, a vampire killed his mother, ripped his father's left leg off and blinded him in one eye.<p>

His father doesn't talk much about the attack. All Oliver's ever been told is the basics – that there was an attack, and that's why he has a hole where other people have left eyes, that daddy's scars are there because of his inability to fight against the dead made walking again, that mommy is dead and in the ground because of a creature.

A creature. A monster. A vampire.

_It_ is the reason why Oliver's household is so somber, so overloaded with protections against the unholy bloodsuckers. _It_ is the reason why Oliver does not leave the house after the sun sets, the reason why he always has a crucifix at his neck, dangling from a sturdy leather thong, vials of holy water and blessed wafers in his pockets. It is the reason why they always pray for ten minutes in the morning and evening, why he knows how to use a rifle better than anyone his age, even with one eye.

He doesn't even know what the vampire looked like. He never worked up the courage to ask.

* * *

><p>One day, on a summer folding into autumn's colder, shorter light hours, he is late in coming home from school. The other boys could have teased him for his disability, but they are not cruel children at heart. They accept him, and find that his skill with a slingshot is enough to make up for his lack of sight in his left eye.<p>

The reason for his lateness is this; the headmaster's dog had a litter of puppies, and being boys they have to track it down. They make grandiose plans of raising the pups into hounds and taking them along to hunting trips in the forest at night to slay monsters, with the dogs saving them at crucial moments and taking them to victory. They grab sticks off of the ground and mime stabbing invisible monsters, laughter ringing in the air at the thought of vanquishing those that dug their way out of the grave to prey on the living.

Oliver planned on heading back early, but when the other boys showed no signs of heading back, and seemed all so confident, well –

Just one night couldn't hurt, he told himself.

The light begins to fade away into twilight, when the sun isn't visible but the darkness isn't all-invading.

They wander near the shed where the dog liked to go. "This is her territory," mutters Wil, kicking at a pebble. "She should be somewhere around here."

"Who?"

They all spin around, because that wasn't any of them. That was a girl's voice.

Behind them stands the prettiest girl they've ever seen, prettier than even Ms. Maika, the English teacher. She has on a black dress like she's going to a funeral, only it's the fanciest dress they've ever seen, and her hair is like white, but not really, so it shines like gold against her dark dress.

She smiles at them, and she is oh-so-pretty, even in the dark shadows that wraps around her and her black-as-night dress. "Who are you talking about?"

The other boys might have answered, or shuffled away. Oliver screams, and digs into his pocket for a vial of holy water. He unplugs the cork, and splashes the water down in front of them all.

The pretty girl jumps back with a scream, like she'd been burned. "Vampire!" Oliver howls at the same time, yanking out a pack of holy wafers from his pocket with his left hand and the crucifix around his neck with his right. "_Vampire_!"

While the girl wails and rubs at her hand – smoking, like she was burning – the other boys cries out loud, spell from her prettiness broken. Smartly, they surge closer to him before pulling out their own talismans; crucifixes around their necks and maybe a piece of dried garlic.

They expect to have to fight. They don't.

The girl runs away into the forest, disappearing in a black blur faster than any human could move.

"We should go home," he croaks, and no one disagrees. They hold out their crosses, and walk with prayers mumbled in their mouths.

When Oliver gets home, his father whips him for being late. "It's past sundown!" he bellows, switch in hand.

Oliver grits his teeth and says nothing of the day's events.

That night, as the pain in the back of his knees throbs angrily, he rolls around on his small bed, wondering about ways to lessen the pain. He waits for his hands to grow cold by leaving them outside of his covers, and when they are cool enough he withdraws them and places the heatless palms against the heated welts, and sighs at the relief they provide him.

There is a knock at the window. He has no trees nearby with branches that sway in the wind, and that is the sound of fingers drumming on glass, not branches bouncing off.

He gets up, and nearly has a heart attack at the sight awaiting him. The girl from earlier on – the vampire – hangs from the roof with one hand, and looks into his room with her eyes glittering.

"Let me in," she says, loud enough to be heard, soft enough to only be heard by him.

Frantically, Oliver shakes his head. It takes all he has to not scream.

The vampire girl pouts, but when he blinks she is gone.

He sleeps with holy wafers lining his windowsill, and the crucifix nearly bound against his throat.

* * *

><p>The next day, at the schoolhouse, the boys have an unspoken agreement – <em>do not tell anyone about what has happened.<em> Oliver is fine with that deal, but that does not stop him from flinching slightly any time someone mentions the word 'vampire', or something related to it.

Iroha Hiyama, the girl he has a crush on, notices, but only partially. "Are you okay?" she asks, soft face creasing with worry.

He smiles and fumbles back and hopes he doesn't blush as he stutters an answer. She grins, and his heart skips a beat.

That day, he is home in a good mood. He finishes his homework without managing to doodle his wandering thoughts on the margins of his notebook, and goes to bed with a grin.

It is night, and he is on the cusps of slumber when the rap at his door shoots spikes of ice-cold fear up his spine. He bolts up into a sitting position and, dreading what he'll find, turns left.

She is there once more with a smile so sweet it is almost disarming. "Let me in," she pouts.

He shakes his head viciously. She leaves, again in a blink of an eye.

* * *

><p>Two days later, the town is thrown into fear, panic and chaos. "My daughter!" wails Mrs. Hiyama, who is being held back from a sheet-covered body by two other townswomen. Her husband is just as deep in grief to be stopping her.<p>

Father Bruno is sprinkling the covered body with holy water and garlic juice, mumbling prayers for the deceased's soul.

Oliver sees strands of pink hair stained with the rust-red of blood sticking out.

The men of the town go into the woods with torches and dogs, armed with blessings, holy water and stakes. They find nothing.

The boys fidget, but they stay silent. Oliver hates himself for staying a coward.

* * *

><p>"Let me in," the girl whispers that night, after her fingers have drummed a soft, short beat into the glass of his window.<p>

He bolts up, but not in fear. "Did you kill her?!" he demands, and does not fear being overheard. Father always drinks too much on the days someone gets killed.

"Who?" the girl asks, and disgusted, Oliver draws the curtains on her.

He opens them a few seconds later, and finds her still there, staring thoughtfully inside with a curious look. She looks so comfortable there, and the thought disturbs him greatly.

"Who?" the girl repeats.

"Iroha," Oliver grits out. "The girl with pink hair."

The girl doesn't say anything, and just continues to stare at him in mild confusion.

Oliver kicks off the sheets covering his body. The air is cold, and the hair on his arms stand up straight at the shock they feel, but he ignores them all, and crosses the wooden boards lining the floor with bare feet.

When he opens the back door, the metal of the crucifix warming up in his sweaty palms, she is there, leaning against the doorframe. She cannot come in unless he allows it, and he knows it, but the sight of her still makes him tense.

He opens his mouth to say something – anything – when she beats him to it, eyes solemn for once. "We're not all the same," she says, and it might be meaningful because vampires cannot lie.

Oliver blinks and she is gone.

* * *

><p>They fall into a system. Sometimes she is there at the window, and they talk before she asks to be let in. He refuses, and it takes longer and longer for him to refuse her request but he always does. She leaves in a heartbeat after being rejected, but she never seems to mind.<p>

But their talks are always between the periods of her knocks and her exit, and they always talk. Sometimes she asks him questions about his life – his school, his issues with homework and lessons, his least favourite foods. Sometimes he asks her about being a creature of the night, and she describes it with a bitter tone that comes from wariness.

She is not that different from him, he thinks. And each time she asks his hesitation grows before he refuses. She never minds, but he feels guilty for a reason he cannot find.

* * *

><p>In the span of two months, five people die. On the last attack, there were two people attacked – one survived, the other didn't. The survivor, Mr. Kagamine, is missing a leg and an eye.<p>

Father is busy that night, preparing rifles with silver ammunition, tying crucifixes on every limb and drinking a cup of holy water. When he sees Oliver looking at him with his one eye, he sighs and gestures at him to sit across the table. "You're old enough," he says gruffly, and Oliver doesn't question it.

"The monster that did this to our family," he begins to tell the story over a flickering candle. "Came in the middle of the night. Wrapped in a cloak. It sounded like a young, scared girl at first, but when your mother opened the door, it lunged like a monster."

Young girl?

He thinks back to the pretty girl at his window, at the back door. For a moment he panics, wondering if that was the vampire –

But no. If she had been, she wouldn't have had to ask for permission.

"And then it was inside, shredding her, and jumping on me before I could do anything," his father whispers, and he sounds like a broken man. "And it was laughing as it jumped onto me. It would have killed me if he hadn't seen you."

Oliver knows the story. The monster gouged his eye before leaving.

That is not the story father tells.

"When it saw you," father says, "it got off of me and began to walk towards you, all slow, like it knew you couldn't move. It knew, and it wanted to prolong your pain, so it walked towards you, talking smoothly about how you were going to be in a lot of pain and how I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

"I had a knife in my pocket. I managed to pull it out and crawl over to it, managed to drag myself onto my foot before I jumped to grab its head and slice it off, but not before it did that to your eye," he makes a strange sound into his fist. "Maybe it's _because_ it was so focused on you that I could do that."

That is not what he expected. He always thought that the monster survived, that the monster ran off. He never knew that father killed it.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" Oliver asks, and he sounds like he is far away from here. How many times in the night had he woken up, cold sweat covering his body, cheeks bloody from trying to suppress screams, even in his sleep? How many times had he tried to bargain with God for the monster that ruined his family to die? How many nights of fear? How many terrors?

All for nothing?

His father hangs his head. "I was ashamed," he says, voice thick with tears. "I should have been able to prevent that from happening to you. I shouldn't have let your mother die, but I was too busy stopping my own bleeding and fainting before I could do anything. What kind of a man am I?"

Oliver doesn't know how to answer that, so he only swallows the painful lump in his throat and locks himself up in his room.

There is a soft knock, and he looks up to see amber eyes.

"You're not the one to attack our family," he says to her as a greeting, and she frowns slightly in confusion. "Sorry."

But he doesn't explain it. His father is a coward, hiding the truth from his son. That is how his young mind judges it.

"Did you kill the villagers?" he asks, directly asking about a kill for the first time since Iroha's murder.

She shakes her head. "Did you think I did?"

"Kind of," he admits. He thought of her as an acquaintance, something exotic and cool like a rare pet, but not a friend. He wonders if she did, and thinks that he betrayed her somehow if that's the case.

"Oh," the girl says. "I . . . alright, then."

She tries to shrug it off, but she is clearly hurt. When she disappears this time, she doesn't even ask to be let in.

* * *

><p>A week passes. A man is killed outside of his own house, and his body is found along with his dead dog's.<p>

The girl returns three days later, still looking a tad bit sad. "Hey," he says. His father is asleep.

She nods at him in greeting.

Oliver decides to confront one final question in his mind. "What did you mean," he begins, and she lifts her head to listen. "When you said, before . . . that not all of you are the same?"

The girl quirks a smile, small as it is. "Are all humans the same?" she asks rhetorically. He thinks of beautiful Ms. Maika, the scowling Mr. Ueki, the freckled but loud Avanna and shakes his head. "Exactly. We all have different ways of acting."

"And you?" he asks. "How do you act?"

Her smile turns wider, but now it is wry. "I get called a freak by others of my kind," she replies, and she looks a bit sad at that.

* * *

><p>The autumn months fly by, and snow signals the entrance of winter.<p>

One day, he gets into a fight with one of the other boys over the use of the ball. Oliver wanted to play soccer, the boy wanted to play baseball.

The argument escalates until it turns to fists, and only when Ms. Maika comes running do they separate.

His classmate, however, gets a parting shot in. "Freak," he mutters, and suddenly Oliver does not feel so normal.

* * *

><p>That night, he looks at the girl who is called a freak by her own people, and compares himself to her. In what ways are they so different?<p>

As a boy twelve years old, he cannot quite think of anything that creates that much of a difference.

"You can come in," he says, "if you'd like."

At that moment she looks so happy that everything is worth it.

* * *

><p>He opens the window and extends a hand to help her. She steps on the windowsill daintily, like a princess, and takes his hand.<p>

Her hand is ice-cold.

"I don't think I told you my name before," she says, and he snaps his attention away from her icy hands. "My name is Mayu."

"I'm Oliver," he says in return.

Mayu's smile is as radiant as the sun she never sees. "I know."

When he blinks, she is gone. He is confused, until he hears a scream from below and an insane burst laughter that chills his bones. He scrambles out of his bed, trying to untangle the sheets from his legs, and runs down the stairs, crucifix bouncing off his chest at every step like a reminder rapping in failure, failure, failure.

When he goes downstairs, he is met with the sight of a bloodbath. His father is dead, and in pieces, scattered across the room that serves as the eating hall and living room. His leg is at the doorway, his torso slung on the table, his arms thrown to different sides of the room.

His head is in Mayu's hands, and her smile is like acid, like poison. Looking at her, black dress and pale face covered with vibrant red blood, Oliver can only call her insane as she smiles in mad bliss.

"Why?" he sobs. He's made a mistake, and a horrible one that can't be fixed.

Mayu smiles at him. "Because, nine years ago," she simpers, stroking his father's brown hair with bloody fingers. The locks mat and turn a dark, dark crimson, but she doesn't mind. In fact, she seems to like it that way. "Your father killed my mate."

"He killed my mother," he manages, although he thinks he might throw up. "He ripped my father's leg off. He did _this_ to me," Oliver points at his empty eye.

Still with the mad smile on her face, Mayu begins to walk towards him. Oliver backs up, one step for every one she advances, but he knows that's not enough. "You said others called you a freak," he tries desperately, looking for the pretty girl who hung from the roof to talk to him throughout the night, not this monster in front of him. He refuses to accept that they are one and the same. "You said you didn't kill the villagers."

"I never _said_ it," Mayu giggles. "And I am a freak. Even us creatures of the night have a degree of . . . humanity."

She bursts out laughing, but it subsides into sobs. "And only Yohio understood it," she sniffles, and when she lifts her head Oliver is horrified to realize that she is shedding tears of _blood_. "But he's gone now. And now, I'm going to finish what he started."

Oliver holds up his crucifix, but she is already at his back, teeth to his throat. He freezes, and a warm, wet feeling spreads at the base of his trousers.

"Good night, Oliver," she sighs, and then a sharp pain rips through his neck.

He screams, but not for long.

* * *

><p>AN: What kind of a Christmas storyshipping story is this.

For Kaleidoscopic Dragon. I'm sorry, but when you involve Mayu with me . . . there is no normalness.

Songs responsible: "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift; "Life Reset Button", multiple versions; "Sadistic Vampire" by Len; "Blood-stained Switch" by MAYU; "Phoenix" and "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark" by Fall Out Boy.


End file.
